chapter 13

Never Can Say Goodbye

YOUR DIALOG WITH THE WEB has now begun. And though this book, like young love, must end, our conversation will continue. You will find us, and we will

find you on the pages of the World Wide Web.

No book (indeed, no five-year program, if one existed) could teach you everything you need to know to design smart, attractive, user-focused websites. You will learn as you work—from teammates, partners, and even your clients.

You also will learn a great deal from the people who visit your sites. You’ll be surprised at how many write—and not merely to complain when your single-spaced, 10px type sends them scurrying to the optometrist.

But some of the best places to learn are on the Web itself, hence this chapter. In it we share our favorite online resources and explain the importance of continuing your education as the Web and your career experience growth and change.

SEPARATION ANXIETY

Throughout this book, we’ve shown methods used to design today’s Web and shared theories about how people interact with the medium. You need to know these things to begin working now.

388 HOW: Never Can Say Goodbye: Separation Anxiety

But as we’ve also pointed out, the Web is changing; indeed, like the sea, or like some other Zen metaphor we can’t quite put together here, the Web’s very nature is one of constant change. Currently the Web is changing in an intriguing way—one that will move it closer to its founders’ original vision of an open medium, accessible by all people and available to all sorts of Internet-enabled devices.

What will empower that happy change? It will come with the separation of style from content. What does that mean? It means you’ll stop welding your texts and functions and images together through overextended HTML. Instead, you’ll keep your visual design in one place (a Cascading Style Sheet) and your content in another (a series of HTML or XHTML documents; a database of XML-formatted text). The twain will meet on the web page, but their behind-the-scenes separation will considerably enhance your working conditions and your audience’s experience.

Instead of painstakingly slicing apart images in Photoshop as described in this book or spending hours hand-tweaking hundreds of individual HTML documents, you’ll have time to spend on more interesting pursuits such as design itself—which is, after all, what you do.

This change in the nature of web design as a practice will come when all web users employ browsers that fully support the standards that empower us to separate style from content: HTML/XHTML, CSS, XML, JavaScript/ ECMAScript, and the DOM.

Not only do browsers have to change (and they are changing), web designers must also change—a proposition that requires the willingness to continue learning and to risk discarding methods we’ve spent years perfecting.

In February 2001, A List Apart reinvented itself with a standards-compliant design that separates style from content (http://www.alistapart.com/ stories/99/). As you might expect, the site (www.alistapart.com) is a good resource for information on that subject.

The reinvention of ALA coincided with The Web Standards Project’s Browser Upgrade campaign (http://www.webstandards.org/upgrade/), which urges web designers to learn about and use the W3C recommendations we’ve

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discussed in this book, even if the resulting sites look less than delicious in older, nonstandards-compliant browsers. The Browser Upgrade campaign also asks web designers and content creators to seek ways to encourage user upgrades so that the Web can improve without leaving anyone behind.

The Browser Upgrade campaign and the ALA redesign were logical next steps in the evolution of the Web. We launched them while writing this book, which brings up the problem with books. Namely, while books have the virtue of permanence, they cannot update themselves as websites can. We encourage you to continue learning by visiting educational and inspiring websites and reading and participating in web design mailing lists and forums.

The remainder of this chapter will provide you with plenty to choose from. Use these resources to amplify parts of this book and to learn more about the emerging, standards-based Web. At the end of the annotated list below, we’ll return to offer a final thought about the Web and you.

FROM TAG SOUP TO TALK SOUP: MAILING

LISTS AND ONLINE FORUMS

Learning by trial and error is part of any process and is certainly part of web design. Learning from other members of your team is a deeply bonding experience, but learning (and sharing your own knowledge) on a mailing list is a pleasure no web designer should miss.

There are many, many mailing lists and online communities for web designers and developers. Some focus on specific technologies; others are vast, crowded, and general. Some function as job referral services while others mainly promote the people who created the list. Some are chaotic, others restrictive. With a little effort, you will find the ones that make you feel most comfortable.

Following, in alphabetical order, are some of our favorites.

390 HOW: Never Can Say Goodbye: From Tag Soup to Talk Soup

A List Apart

http://www.alistapart.com/

Each week A List Apart publishes useful tutorials (“Meet the DOM,” “Fear of Style Sheets”), challenging opinion pieces (“The Curse of Information Design,” “Sympathy for the Plug-in”), or both. And each week, after reading these articles, ALA readers respond on the site’s discussion forum. The site is noncommercial, and you need not reveal your identity or other personal information to participate in the discussion forums.

Astounding Websites

http://www.astoundingweb.org/

Launched by Glenn Davis and maintained by Dave Bastian, this unique discussion community was created to honor the best writing, design, and programming on the Web. Visit this small, friendly forum to discover inspiring commercial and noncommercial sites or participate by reviewing sites you admire. You can also submit your own sites for review in the Site Promotion section.

The Babble List

http://www.babblelist.com/

Maintained by Christopher Schmitt (and resurrected by him in 2001 after a brief hiatus), The Babble List is a well-run general web design mailing list, covering issues of graphic design, information architecture, writing, usability, project management, and related skills. Though the average Babble Lister is a professional with at least two years’ experience, the list is beginner-friendly. If you find yourself stuck on a JavaScript or CSS problem or wondering why your site looks great in one browser but poor in another, you can post your message to The Babble List and anticipate useful feedback.